Temporality in Ozu's Tokyo Story (19

The stylistic practices that the Ozu’s Tokyo Story (1953) undertakes have been the reason why this film has remained a film studies favourite. I was particularly interested in the temporality of the film. The film was very serene in its approach to depict the universal concerns that we all face in life when it comes to relationships with our family.

The de-emphasis on plotline could be argued as a way of drawing the audience away from results but towards process. Ozu’s idiosyncratic style of relying on insinuation to progress with his story is demonstrated by the exclusion of events within the film’s narrative. The narrative ellipses left out critical events in the characters’ lives but in doing so they remained effectively insightful. Thus the ellipses dictated the pace of the film which, as it turned out, to be quite slow. But rightly so as it allowed for character development and a plot that unravelled at a pace that allows you to be immersed in the atmosphere of the film. This level of restraint in the film’s narrative that Ozu implements allows for an almost ‘special effect’ when the peak of the film arrives. We see this in Noriko’s breakdown towards the end of the film demonstrating the true acting ability of Setsuko Hara which was otherwise quite bland and wooden before this moment in the film.

The slowness of pace was also a testament to a different way of representing modernity; this transcended also to what was on screen. The film displayed a very calming and tranquil feel about the atmosphere. The imagery in the first few scenes where there are shots of various elements of the city including trains, a clothes line, automobiles and so on were visually composed to create sense of tranquillity. Ozu was very much patient with his imagery and was devoid of the need to hectically edit. In terms of narrative, there is an almost circular feel about the film’s temporality. In the beginning before the grandparents leave, their neighbour says “Your children will be looking forward to your arrival”, in the end however, the grandmother dies. As a result we have come full circle; life is a resolved and there is a sense of completed feeling.

Ozu’s use of the narrative ellipses reminded me a lot of the recent film Atonement (2007) directed by Joe Wright. Similar to Tokyo Story, the film involves the relationships wrought by time and the inevitability of separation and loss. Atonement characterised the same temporal attributes Ozu executed in Tokyo Story in that it was slow-paced and imbued with omitted critical events. The film is divided into the three different periods of time that span throughout the characters’ lives. In between these periods of time, critical events occur and are not included in the film. I felt that the slow momentum of the film was really effective in building the narrative. Again, we see the emphasis of the process over outcome.